We don’t know.
And no one else does, either.
The legal system is highly unpredictable and uncertain.
Be extremely suspicious of any attorney who paints too rosy of a picture of the situation, or who too confidently promises a budget.
When looking to engage legal counsel, it is very common to be concerned about potential costs. It is also very common to get inconsistent or unpredictable estimates about what financial costs to expect in your type of case. This leaves many clients unsure who or what to believe, and leaves them nervous about retaining an attorney.
While we will do our best to estimate what your case might cost, this page will explain why predicting the future is so difficult in the legal industry – even for highly experienced legal teams.
Legal Costs
Here is what drives legal costs, and why they are so difficult to predict:
The story
The history of the parties sets the stage for the general dispute.
The objectives
How you want the story to end will define our challenges.
The timeline
How quickly things need to happen determines our options.
The opponent
How the other party reacts will determine the length and hostility of the case.
In a nutshell
Notice that most of these factors are completely out of you and your legal team’s control. This is why litigation is often regarded as a horrifying nightmare for all involved.
Combined with the unpredictable apathy of the courts, the time intensive and expensive demands of representation, and the personal stressors of litigation, even the most well-intentioned attorneys are unable to be fully responsive to the suffering of their clientele.
At Hemmat Law, we try our best to blunt the roughest edges of this system, and here is how:
What you should Expect
What you should demand (from us) or from any other attorney:
Prompt communication
Your attorney should be getting back to you promptly (usually within 1 business day). If you can text your team or collaborate with them via app, like you can with HLG, all the better.
Technological sophistication
Our office is fully paperless and remote. E-signatures, electronic payments, and remote access are easily accessible to law firms. Working in-person needlessly inflates costs.
Activity Transparency
We give you activity reports every two weeks to ensure you know what is going on. Ask your attorney how often they give you visibility into their work.
Sales Integrity
Be extremely suspicious of any firm who paints too rosy a picture of the situation to get you to sign on. We do our best to flag challenges straight away.
Litigation Control
Litigation is a strategic tool, not a weapon of first resort. Take care that you hire a legal team with litigation experience, but also ensure that they prefer to resolve things outside a courtroom whenever possible.
Red Flag
Beware of any attorney in family law who brags about how often they go to trial. Most skilled practitioners can (and should) resolve most cases before things get that far. Your family and your wallet will thank you.
Why a family law trial is (almost always) a terrible idea:
Family law trials in Washington have no jury. This means that the entire outcome of a case hinges on the opinion of one person: the judge.
Judges are fallible people, and they cannot know you or your story no matter how much they read about you.
This means that an attorney can argue the case perfectly 10 times and get 10 different results. Even judges will admit that ruling from the bench is often like conducting surgery with a mallet and a chainsaw – terrible for all involved.
Every ethical lawyer in Washington will generally counsel you similarly. Especially when your family is on the line.
Things to keep in mind, no matter who you hire:
- Your lawyers will need to read everything. The quality of assistance any firm can provide is directly linked to the amount of data at our disposal.
- Re-doing someone else’s work is always harder than having one firm do it to begin with. This goes for the self-represented parties and for other law firms.
- Joining a case mid-way through is always harder than starting one. Your legal team will have to spend a lot of time learning about what has (and hasn’t) happened.
- The shorter the timeline for any task, the bigger the challenge it presents. In general, getting things done at the last second forces your legal team to throw manpower at a problem to make up the lost time.
- Several of the above pitfalls can occur simultaneously.
